1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and system to grant and control remote access of prospective grantees to video resources of grantors on an Internet website, and more particularly to methods and systems to enable the grant of remote viewing privileges from a grantor to a grantee through an Internet website.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Social networking websites (e.g., MySpace, Facebook, and equivalent websites) are popular for participants to share information about themselves with other participants. Typically, there is some information provided by a participant to a social networking website before they can contribute any postings to the website. Such information could be of interest to potential advertisers in regards to targeting specific advertisements to people most likely to be receptive to the advertisements.
There are also participants on the website that reside in different geographical areas (e.g., different cities, different states, different countries, and/or different continents), having access to different video resources possibly in different languages, that are not generally available to the participants located in other geographical areas. Examples of such video resources could be live ground-based or satellite television broadcast, television cable network or equivalents. With the advent of place-shifting video equipment that enables remote viewing of a person's own television through the Internet, it is possible to imagine that other people could also be interested in seeing what is available to be seen on another person's television, especially in other geographical locations.
One problem is the need to organize a system and method for making available video resources of a grantor for remote access by a grantee. Another problem is how to protect the rights of the content owners (e.g., ABC, Disney, and equivalent content owners) and/or the service providers (e.g., Comcast, Dish Networks, and equivalent providers) by generating additional stream of revenue for them. Yet another problem is how to control the access of grantees to the video resources of a grantor, and how this remote viewing access could be made available on a practical and economically sustainable basis on the Internet, given the costs associated with using up the Internet bandwidth and other related costs.
In view of the foregoing, what is needed is a method and system to control the remote viewing of video resources of one person by another person. Various wired and wireless audio/video applications could contribute to such methods and systems.